(hb; 2023: twenty-fourth book
in the Dune series)
From the inside flap
“Two years for Dune: The never-before-told story of two key women in the life of Paul Muad’Dib—Princess Irulan, his wife in name only, and Paul’s true love, the Fremen Chani. Both women become central to Paul’s galaxy-spanning Imperial reign.
“Raise in the Imperial court and born to be a political bargaining chip, Irulan was sent at an early age to be trained as a Bene Gesserit Sister. As Princess Royal, she also learned important lessons from her father—the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. Now of marriageable age, Princess Irulan sees the machinations of the many factions vying for power—the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, the Spacing Guild, the Imperial throne, and a ruthless rebellion in the Imperial military. The young woman has a wise and independent streak and is determined to become much more than a pawn to be moved about on anyone’s gameboard.
“Meanwhile, on Arrakis, Chani—the
daughter of Liet-Kynes, the Imperial Planetologist who serves under the harsh
rule of House Harkonnen—is trained in the Fremen mystical ways by an ancient
Reverend Mother. Brought up to believe in her father’s ecological dream of a
green Arrakis, she follows Liet around to Imperial testing stations, surviving
the many hazards of desert life. Chani soon learns the harsh cost of Fremen
dreams and obligations under the oppressive bootheel of the long Harkonnen
occupation.”
Review
Princess, like many of the Dune books, is a slick, often hard-to-set-down (especially in the last third) science fiction tale with plenty of action, drama and series-recurring characters—while Princess is not a vital entry in the series it, set two years before the events of the original Dune novel (1965), is a welcome addition to the series, further explaining some of the relations between certain characters and organizations (e.g. CHOAM and the Tleilaxu). I especially enjoyed Wensicia's story arc as well as her relationship with her oldest sister, Irulan.
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